Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Guess Who? 2009-2-05

An ice formation, closely resembling a statue of the Virgin Mary, formed on a shelf outside the trailer of Lionel Gonzalez of Plymouth. (Tribune Photo/MICHAEL PETRUCELLI)

Story Updated: Feb 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM EST

PLYMOUTH — Lionel Gonzalez says he wasn’t the first to notice the ice shaped like the Virgin Mary outside his home. His friend, Jose Perez, did.

Perez stepped into his mobile home Wednesday afternoon and said, "Hey, you know you got the Virgin Mary out there!"

"Don’t be playin’ about that," Gonzalez responded. "You don’t play about that."

But Perez insisted. So outside they went and found Mary, in ice, at the base of the hitch on his home at Northgate Mobile Home Park, head tilted down, hands clasped in prayer at her chest.

When Gonzalez told people about it, they asked whether he’d carved it. No, he hadn’t, he said. It’s smooth and rounded. It’s also frozen to the wall of his home, so no one put it there, either. No water drips onto it; it’s too cold. In fact, it is under a window cover, which itself is under an eave. So he can’t explain how Mary arrived there.